Slashdot Mirror
Jobs Unfazed by Zune
twofish writes "In an interview
at Newsweek marking the approaching 5th anniversary of the launch of the
iPod, Apple CEO Steve Jobs seems unconcerned by Microsoft's wannabe iPod killer
Zune. Earphone sharing will prove a more potent force for social networking
than the iPod rival's wireless song-sharing feature, he reckons. 'I've seen the demonstrations on the internet about how you can find another
person using a Zune and give them a song they can play three times. It takes
forever,' he says in the article. 'By the time you've gone through
all that, the girl's got up and left! You're much better off to take one of
your earbuds out and put it in her ear. Then you're connected with about two
feet of headphone cable.'"
I know a lot of Slashdotters hate iTunes for "DRM", "not HD(TV) quality", "too expensive", or whatever other B.S. excuse they can come up with, but...
You won't find that sort of business done at Microsoft. Their strategy is:
1. Announce a competing product with limitless fanfare. Doesn't matter if it sucks.
2. Slowly improve it until the market finds it semi-acceptable.
3. Leverage the Windows monopoly to CRUSH the competition.
Didn't you hear? You can only use iPods with a Mac. With Zuma, you can be compatible with the millions of Microsoft Vista machines, out of the box! Plus, you know you're getting Microsoft Quality(TM) and Support(TM) when you purchase a Zuma. Those other digital music companies could fold tomorrow, leaving you with no music and no refund. Only Microsoft products can provide you with a guaranteed safety net! </standard-Microsoft-bull>
You know, he's got a point. It might seem very impressive in a geeky way to Zuma a file across the room to the pretty girl (if you don't mind that I just used "Zuma" as a verb), but she is definitely not going to be impressed unless she's also a geek. You've also got the matter of the song being played in a vacuum, where your own thoughts and feelings on the tune are missing. Thus it holds no meaning. Besides, pod-jacking gives you a much better chance of being able to talk to that pretty girl.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Teenage girls all over America issue restraining orders against Steve Jobs, related to his attempts to "share his earphones" with them.
'By the time you've gone through all that, the girl's got up and left! You're much better off to take one of your earbuds out and put it in her ear. Then you're connected with about two feet of headphone cable.'
Dating advice for using the iPod?! Let's see Bill Gates top that with the Zune!
Of course he's 'unfazed' by the Zune. He sits atop a company that currently has massive (and, more importantly, very loyal) fanbase in both computers and portable media players.
Microsoft is new to this market and I doubt jobs will be afraid of anybody (even Microsoft) in this market. Hell, I'll bet Jobs isn't even concerned about iRiver's or Sony's products even though they seem to have been in the market longer.
What was he supposed to do? Halt all production and support of iPods at the sight of the Zune and declare that he's beaten? Is he supposed to assume the fetal position and cower and cry when he hears the word 'Zune?' Retreat to the northern woods where he trains night and day so that one day he might come back and beat Microsoft in some other fashion?
I would be shocked if Jobs said anything otherwise. What's our next headline for Slashdot? Is it going to be "Steve Ballmer's Kids Love Zune"? What about "Jobs Says New Mac Models Are Good"? You gotta keep up those hard hitting headlines.
The questions in this article are laughable! Interviewer: "Jobs, I've pitched you so many softball questions but in an effort to pitch you another, how can the iPod lose its popularity with Dick Cheney and Queen Elizabeth owning one?" Jobs: "It can't, but let me attempt to be modest as you pop a woody for me." Interviewer: "I know you've only sold millions of iPods so let me attempt to further illustrate how great it is, will it always be about the music?" Jobs: "It's about whatever makes it sell the most."
Stop humping his leg!
I think the only way you could worry Jobs is if you made a media device that physically pleasures the user (with nods to Stanislaw Lem). Although Jobs could just fire back that the video playing iPod requires some effort but can meet the same needs.
My work here is dung.
Apples Strength is that they tend to only add features that people really need and can use. Microsoft just takes whatever people complain about not having and shove it in there doesn't matter if it is really useful or not. Apple knows that people wants wireless access to their iPod but apple won't put it in there until they can find a way to make it right, so it is actually a benefit vs. an expensive feature that people won't use, more then just past the for 1/2 hour for the ohhs and ahhs.
Lets take a look at virtual screens. OS X is just releasing this as a new feature in its OS next year, Unix/Linux has had this feature for decades. Why now did apple finally release it. Well because there is enough CPU/GPU power to make it so people can understand it and not call and complain about there windows being missing. Or not seeing where they put what. It is about not releasing a feature until it can be made useful. Not just putting in a feature half hazardly jest because people who like buzzwords say they want it.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
what person in their right mind would stick and earbud from some hard-legged dude in their ear? that is just gross
If you need a novel way to pick up girls then neither the iPod, nor the Zune will do that for you, sorry, keep looking.
In a world of acronyms, the words are the real victims.
Wait, what? Steve Jobs is talking about _girls_? And he works at _Apple_? /me ducks
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
Then again, the average Slashdotter probably doesn't own an iPod and/or Mac. So society is still protected from the basement dwellers. :P
Really? I would have thought he would praise them for their innovation and talk about what Apple is doing to catch up with Microsoft, a company renowned for being 'in touch' and 'with it', now that five years after the release of the ipod, they finally have something that even comes close.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
You're much better off to take one of your earbuds out and put it in her ear.
Why not just keep both earbuds where they are, enjoy the music, and still stick it in her ear? Or am I misunderstanding something here...?
Wasn't there a time when Apple was unfazed by IBM-PCs? :>
Your ad here.
What is Jobs susposed to say? "I'm scared, help me!!!" ?
Good comments, but Jobs does have his own bits of doublespeak. When he says that customers aren't asking for compatibility he's either defining his terms VERY carefully or he's in denial.
On the other hand he can't say "we can't adopt Microsoft's proprietary DRM instead of our own proprietary DRM because: (A) Microsoft will crush us, and (B) Microsoft's DRM is too effective for customers to put up with... the main reason we can get away with what we're doing in the iTunes Store is because everyone knows our DRM is little more than 'honor system'."
Though it would be refreshing to hear that/ He could go on with "You know, back before we introduced DRM I pointed out that DRM is basically impossible to make more than 'honor system' anyway, and our success really proves how right I was."
Wireless headphones, baby. You can stay in the living room with mom, while I'm in the basement.
Game... blouses.
Wow, the iPod will really start to lag if it loses it's cache!
"Earphone sharing will prove a more potent force for social networking than the iPod rival's wireless song-sharing feature, he reckons"
Not to mention social diseases as well. "Remember: Wipe the Wax! This public service announcment brought to you by the Department of Public Health".
Where were you when the voynix came?
Just as geeky as the 90's version of uncool, tragically unhip, business dudes and engineers beaming business cards to each other. The novelty will wear off after 2 tries. The only people who will do it are going to be geeks... Oh wait, the geeks are going to buy an Ogg Vorbis player made by a Taiwanese company that nobody's heard off....
The only people who will use this feature are going to be the dorks working in Microsoft's Zune division who came up with this non-feature... well, at least until they get laid off....
This just screams pimp to me. "You're much better off to take one of your earbuds out and put it in her ear. Then you're connected with about two feet of headphone cable.'" Steve "huggy bear"Jobs
TheADDkid.com
"how can the iPod lose its popularity with Dick Cheney and Queen Elizabeth owning one?""
They own one? That must explain the earphone sharing, and all the trans-atlantic plane flights. You'd think that each would be rich enough to afford their own iPod.
Where were you when the voynix came?
Jobs conveniently ignores that people also have two headphones with the Zune.
To the contrary, he panders to some cliche of the socially inept nerd who _will in situations where iPod users share an earplug, instead insist on Zuning the song across_. I don't really like that.
The functionality is in addition to that the iPod has. In addition to the (often girl-involving) set of situations where sharing an earplug is nice, you get the entirely different set of situations where someone might appreciate having one of your songs. And to be fair I think the first set is bigger than the second, but all features are appreciated.
Earphone sharing definitely gets you closer to her for a minute or two, but transferring an mp3 to her she can listen to 3 times w/ your phone number in the title. Priceless.
Wireless sharing for the Zune is not about sharing songs with a girl in a bar. It is entirely about giving Starbucks a means for sending you commercials disguised as "zune-casts" when you walk into their shop.
-----
Pretty Bad Privacy (PBP) Public Key
6
There's nothing cool about handing out business cards whether it's physical paper or digital data. Cool isn't even on the screen.
Beaming cards was mainstream... I had a wrecker driver wave a palm at me when he was towing my car in 2000... until the iPaq finally got a fast enough processor in the ARM to make Microsoft's handheld OS usable, and Palm lost the plot and tried to turn the Palm into the same kind of "laptop replacement" device Microsoft was pushing. Pocket PCs wrecked beaming.
Why?
The Pocket PC makes beaming business cards a cumbersome trial that only the geeky can handle. You had to navigate multiple menus, switch modes in the receiving device, and wait, and wait. The Palm made it simple and automatic... just hold one button down and it Just Works, and works *quickly*.
So the question is... will the Zune make beaming music "a cumbersome trial" or "simple and automatic"? How long will it take?
What if the woman has a Zune and I have such a raging iPod at that moment?
This is lame. Go for the Nomad instead.
But seriously - the iPod seemed lame compared to Creative's nomad when it first came out. Yet it suceeded. Why? What does it have that all the mp3 players that cane out before and cost less lack?
"'By the time you've gone through all that, the girl's got up and left! You're much better off to take one of your earbuds out and put it in her ear. Then you're connected with about two feet of headphone cable.'""
;-) I mean you've already shared ear wax, compared to that, dinner is piece of cake ;-)
Amen, once you have a lovely lady listening to TWiT with you, asking her if she'll join you for dinner is easy
I think Steve Job has intentionally missed the point. Yes, the whole sharing thing is pointless and won't be used. But Wi-Fi will be the future (hopefully for iPods too) for uploading music to the device and playing back to speakers.
For example, I play music from my MacBook wirelessly to my speakers through my AirPort Express (yes, I'm an Apple fanboy) a lot. I really wish I could do the same, but from my iPod, so I don't have to power up the MacBook. If iPod had Wi-Fi - ta da! Problem solved.
I think Steve knows this is the future but is spreading a little FUD about the Zune. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if the next generation of video iPod has wi-fi - carefully timed to arrive with the iTV - so it can play video wirelessly too. It's the next logical step.
If I were Ballmer, I would seek out an opportunity to comment on the doubtless many medical studies that have shown that ear wax, mites, bacteria, Avian flu virus, cooties, parasites, AIDS, those icky crayfish-like ear thingies from "Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan," the gay gene, and terrist nucular WMD materials remain on ear bud surfaces, no matter how clean they seem to be.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
"People will buy iPods because they can let someone borrow their iPod to listen and that's faster than copy songs from Zune to Zune." WTF is Jobs on about?
Everyone loves to slam the Zune's minimally useful (some might say pathetic) wireless feature. They come up with all sorts of slurs, and even imply sharing earbuds is way better than wireless exchange of music. Does anyone on these boards *really* think that wireless-enabled portable media players are not the future? From my perspective, it is obvious that all portable players will have wireless capabilities, or they will cease to exist. Microsoft knows this and is positioning Zune for the inevitable future. Some might even say they are providing some much needed innovation in a fairly stagnant market. Perhaps their current implementation is lacking, but I think we all know it will get better. So I repeat the question: Does anybody really not think wireless will soon be a mandatory feature for all portable media players?
The more you regulate a company, the worse its products become.
I think this conclusively shows that the iPod will triumph over the Zune.
Basically, there are very few reasons to buy a Zune. One of the things Microsoft has touted is the ability to share a song in a limited fashion via wireless.
Jobs is saying that process is cumbersome. Rather than transfer the song from device-to-device, users are much more likely to physically pass their device over to their friend, let them listen, feel happy, and go about their day.
Yes, the Zune can also do this. But, that isn't a *reason* to buy a Zune over an iPod.
He's simply stating that the marketing hype behind the Zune is misplaced on features that kinda suck from the get-go. And that's why he's not worried about the Zune. Nor should he be.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
You know that the kids will be using it to share pr0n. Sample usage: "I'll squirt Jenna for you, you can squirt me something of yours. And FFS not the Goat Man."
"You're much better off to take one of your earbuds out and put it in her ear."
Any adolescent male or Marketing droid who can't understand the potency of this remark has never fed a woman with their fingers. Microsoft will never understand this because their souls are printed on dollar bills.
Why not just keep both earbuds where they are, enjoy the music, and still stick it in her ear?
Aural sex?
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
Look, I hate Steve Ballmer as much as the next Linux Loyalist but if you're going to quote him about something, at least keep it in context. I don't think he was talking about Google when he was shouting "developers." According to Wikipedia, "More video, captured at a developers' conference just days later, featured a sweat-soaked Ballmer chanting the word "developers", at least fourteen times, in front of the bemused gathering." And the account of him throwing a chair and saying "%$#@ing Google" was when he was losing a valuable employee to Google. An employee now working for their competitor which is our only witness of the event. I'm not saying he didn't do it, I'm just saying that this wasn't something he repeated to people meaning it could have been heat of the moment and intended for solely one person.
I recognize that there might be some information to be gleaned from this interview but he only mentions the Zune in the very last question. How can you draw "read between the lines" inferences from that? Furthermore, how can you link to an interview with many softball questions and one about the Zune and then entitle the article, "Jobs Unfazed by Zune"? I have one short paragraph about how he feels and you expect me to make decisions on how much threat the Zune poses to him based on that?
I stand by my initial assessment of this being patently not newsworthy and there's very little to be learned from this. Prior to reading this interview, I thought that Steve Jobs was not afraid of the Zune. Now I think that he's acknowledged it, thought about it and still not afraid of it because of technical complications and the obvious fact that he sits atop a massive loyal fanbase.
The business card things was stupid, but what was cool was beaming a whole bunch of addresses to someone else. I've done it a number of times when someone joined our team and needed everyone's contact info.
It would be really cool if the Zune allows me to beam an entire playlist to someone else. Of course, it would not be cool if the receiver could only play them a couple times and if the beaming took more than 15 seconds.
Help! I'm a slashdot refugee.
"Dating Me(TM) enables integrated solutions that optimize your Social Life Experience through new streamlined enterprise implementations and enhanced security..."
"Dating Me(TM) is a service provided to you under the following terms and conditions..."
"...in no event will Me be liable for damages to your reputation, orifices, or other assets arising from Dating Me(TM)..."
"...you agree to allow Microsoft(TM) personnel to periodically inspect your residentiary premises for evidence of Unauthorized Account Activity (including but not limited to Shagging rms on the Side)..."
"...you hereby grant permission for Me too share non-personally-identifying information (such as your CPU serial number, your driver's license number, and your social security number) with certain strategic partners of Me..."
"...any attempts to reverse-engineer Me for better performance, reliability, etc. are strictly prohibited by this agreement..."
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
And passing motorists pictures of TubGirl and teh Goatse.
So what he's really saying is essentially "you're much more likely to get laid with an iPod than a Zune"...
"Then again, the average Slashdotter probably doesn't own an iPod and/or Mac. So society is still protected from the basement dwellers. :P"
How do you know? Have you done a poll on Slashdot? You know, the one that will inevitably tell you that 38.6% of Slasdotters responded to the "Do you own an iPod or a Mac?" question with the answer "Cowboy Neal" ?
Where were you when the voynix came?
Allofmp3.com is the only music store I'd use. DRM makes other offerings worthless. Boycott DRM!
>I've done it a number of times when someone joined our team and needed everyone's contact info.
I did say that tragically un-hip business dudes and engineers were the only people who used the beaming function
2. Slowly improve it until the market finds it semi-acceptable.
I believe when iPod/iTunes was first announced it was Mac only... the would be in the "slowly improve it until the market finds it semi-acceptable" category. In addition, there have been a series of "flaws" to use such a crass word about Apple with the iPods... non-replacable batteries, defective batteries, scratches... etc.
For fast time to market, nearly everyone continously improves their products after they have been released. This is generally good for consumers...as companies face competition and learn more. Overall, even if you don't buy a competive music player, the more competition the better... driving more featuresand lower prices.
A new organism is formed by the protrusion of part of another organism. When yeast buds, one cell becomes two cells. When a sponge buds, a part of the parent sponge falls off and starts to grow into a new sponge. These are examples of asexual reproduction. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budding I think the discovery process in the community is key... not just... hey i see you got a nice shiney ipod or a zune thingy... do you listen to cool music? got any recommendations? The reason I like my ipod... its my space...
You mean Microsoft producing the Zune won't create jobs in the manufacturing sector?
;)
Those bastards, outsourcing th.....
Oh, wait, you're talking about Steve Jobs
not jobs as in earning a paycheck.....
Never mind.
Isn't that his job?
You say you want a revolution....
It takes forever,' he says in the article. 'By the time you've gone through all that, the girl's got up and left! You're much better off to take one of your earbuds out and put it in her ear. Then you're connected with about two feet of headphone cable.'"
This kind of common sense thinking demonstrates why Apple are still so far ahead of their competitors - even when equivalent music players offer more, on paper, than the iPod equivalent at a similar price point.
The technology is always hidden behind the usability and is only included if it's absolutely necessary. That's a good enough reason for me to continue buying iPods.
50% increase in iPod sales after Jobs insisted they get you laid. Most referrals from Slashdot to the Apple Store
Next month:
1000's of virgins request their money back and start a class-action suit against Steve Jobs.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
When Apple has come up iPod and has such a strong growth, what do you think he will say? Oh, I am quaking in my boots and start throwing chairs!
kinky
Steve is absolutely right. Sharing music by taking my earphones and letting a stranger shove them in her ears is so much more romantic and allows you a great chance to test the cleanliness of your prospective mate's ears. Seriously, does Steve consider earwax romantic?
jobs is just too postmodern. what happened to crooning to win a woman's heart? much better icebreaker than trying to shove a sweaty, waxy bud into a stranger's ear.
/. collective thought I was posting an anti-apple remark. I kept getting rejected with stuff like "please type the word in this image: !@!@#$!23412#$"
i think the
- guess I need to learn to cuss like yosemite sam
I think Steve Job has intentionally missed the point. Yes, the whole sharing thing is pointless and won't be used. But Wi-Fi will be the future (hopefully for iPods too) for uploading music to the device and playing back to speakers.
Since the Zune doesn't allow you to use the wireless to upload music to the device and play back to speakers, doesn't that mean that MS missed it? Jobs never said wireless is useless, he said wireless sharing wasn't useful... or at least that it's not implemented well. Notice his comments about how long it takes, etc. He knows that for wireless functionality to be worth the cost, it has to be useful, and useable.
I'm sure Apple is putting WiFi in some future version of the iPod, but they're waiting until it's cost-effective/useable/useful.
Jobs conveniently ignores that people also have two headphones with the Zune.
Yes, but how do you know the Zune doesn't stop playing music when it detects an attempt by more than one person to listen on the same headphones? After all, it would be in line with the limited sharing strategy they have in line with the wireless sharing - if they can't limit listening then shut it down!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Well, yeah, there are other things that ARE compatible and people are getting them. About 1 in 10 people with a complaint actually complain.
I have an iRiver because it is compatible with Linux. When they brought out a firmware for the flash based players to make it compatible, I bought one then.
I didn't but an iPod because they don't support it under Linux. I didn't have to ask, but they lost the possibility of a sale (which is worth more than a guaranteed sale, at least as far as RIAA are concerned).
So what he's really saying is essentially "you're much more likely to get laid with an iPod than a Zune"...
Especially if you come up to a girl with a brown Zune and talk about "squirting" something to her. Your best case scenario there is one where she hasn't been studying martial arts.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Won't Zune make use of an earpiece to deliver sound to your brain?
Of course, bu tin order to include the feature that you're not going to use anyway they had to make the device bigger, have worse battery life, and complicate the menu structure.
So you can do the same thing as the iPod does but the iPod didn't have to make compromises in other areas to have that happen.
Also, on a side note this is an area where I seriously think white headphones would have a small advantage, as they appear to be more sterile. An illusion to be sure, but an important one to convince someone else to put something in their ear...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
You must be new here... on
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
I've been making this point repeatedly since 1996. This simple fact... that Jobs chose to view piracy as competition, is the single most important reason for iTunes Store's, and consequently Apple's, success.
In a sense, the song is free. The user is paying for convenience (robust UI), fidelity (AAC vs. MP3) and selection that the P2P services cannot provide. Whether you want to call this a form of RDF-ing the features/benefits, the fact is that people do pay for design, convenience and selection.
For this reason, tracing back to Jobs' philosophy of Piracy-IS-Competition (as opposed to the "Throw Tons of Lawsuits to the Wall and See What Sticks" approach), Apple distributes more volume than all P2P services combined... even though their product is free.
Because of the product-software integration Apple has, they have a degree of quality control Microsoft cannot touch. Microsoft does not understand hardware the way Apple does. They see hardware as a repository for their bloatware. Whereas Apple sees software as a means to enable hardware to do things related to productivity and entertainment, but the hardware itself must be built to appeal to the consumer's needs, not the shareholder's.
Teenage girls all over America issue restraining orders against Steve Jobs, related to his attempts to "share his earphones" with them.
Meanwhile teenage girls are buying handguns and taking the law into thier own hands after hearing Balmer is coming to "Squirt" them with his "Brown Zune".
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Does anybody really not think wireless will soon be a mandatory feature for all portable media players?
Only if somebody comes up with an implementation of it that doesn't suck.
At the moment, Microsoft doesn't seem to be on-target to delivering that, because Zune's sharing pretty much exemplifies "suck." In some ways it's probably counter-productive, since giving people a crippled version of a feature in their first experience with it, may turn them off to its usefulness later, when it's done right. I think Zune wireless is going to be that kind of non-feature.
It will become mandatory, for all intents and purposes, when Apple puts it into the iPod. And then it will be 'mandatory' for those who want to seriously compete with the iPod, another thing that the Zune doesn't seem poised to do.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
You know that Zune allows you to send songs to another Zune over wireless?
Although you, as a Zune owner, can block particular Zunes from sending stuff to you, other Zunes start off in an unblocked state. Do you know what Microsoft have done? They've invented a new kind of spam. Companies will hack the standard and create a box which will automatically find every Zune in the vicinity and send their (audio/video) adverts to them.
You'll have Zune users in public places swearing at the constant interruptions and hitting the 'do not accept' button.
The next Cmdr Taco duplicate will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and see it early!
Sitting on the subway, listening to my Zune when I hear a quick couple beeps during my song. My Zune is telling me another Zune just entered my wireless radius. I jump to the wireless screen with one button, and see the user 'Loves2Splooge' has 1242 songs to share. I am able to browse his list as easily as I browse mine - I can even preview the song wirelessly before transfering to my Zune. I take about 30 tracks and permanently store them to my Zune.
THAT would be an iPod killer... what makes it sad is that it's only the stupid software that limits the aforementioned ideas. I hope someone is able to come out with a custom OS that enables users to do just what I've described.
Find Escorts, Strippers, Massage Parlours, Swingers
I seemed to have missed your funny bone.
With the economy moving in its current direction, Jobs will start to see an increase around Zecember or Zanuary 2007 based on expected consumer spending around Christmas.
If you look at explosions in other gadgets and human nature... Steve is wrong about Zune's music sharing. Here is why...
Kids love cell phones. They love text messaging. They also love text messaging on their computers. One common theme is to express their individuality by publishing What they're listening to right now. Sometimes in a chat they'll even include a link to the song. Couple this with increasing introverted behavior. Kids will love the ability to share a song via wireless. There is this innate need to get inside the headspace...
Sharing a headphone requires an unwanted and unwelcome [physical] contact.
The Zune wireless can be extended to do more than share music. Its personal publishing.
/\/\icro/\/\uncher
Not that I really care, but isn't the device called "Zune"?
This is a gadget whose strongest feature is arguably the marketing dept behind it and slashdotting geeks, of all people, get the name wrong.
Interesting.
Sharing earbuds is awkward, Mr. Jobs.
Scanning for other people's iPod content wireless is way much more fun, Microsoft actually got that right.
But wireless content sharing could be done in much cooler ways than dreamed up by Mr. Gates.
It could even make Apple some dimes in the process.
Mr. Jobs, why don't you get someone contact me for these - and other - core ideas, at appleideas at gmail.com
Talk to you soon...
Random.Nick
I think you mean the Zune. Zuma is a puzzle game where you play the part of a frog-shaped Aztec idol who shoots colored balls out of its mouth. Zuma, ironically, is not only available on the iPod but is one of the few games that benefits from the iPod's scrollwheel controls.
Or maybe you meant Zima, which is a very terrible malt beverage. Or maybe you meant Zymomi, which I just make up (but would make an excellent drug name. Merck, call me).
And the day walking up to some girl and playing some song from your mp3 player works as a pickup line, I'll be on the phone, buying Apple stock.
Small potatoes make the steak look bigger.
I don't know if anyone pointed this out, but "Zuma" is a casual game by Pop Cap in which a frog fires colored marbles and similarly colored marbles.
You're all cool with me ("a stranger" as you point out) grabbing your boobs? Lets hook up, I promise not to shove any earwaxy heroin needle filled objects into you.
Zune is still going nowhere from a mindshare standpoint.
y =zune_meme_rerun
I'm tempted to call it Dead On Arrival.
http://www.realmeme.com/roller/page/realmeme?entr
Want to know another company that said that? PalmSource. Here are some of my favorites:
Palm OS devices now have most of the above. But it was too late. Palm ignored where the market was going and they ended up falling way behind. Pocket PC 2000 was difficult to use. The devices were slow (except for the iPaq), expensive, big, and had poor battery life. But then technology moved forward. Pocket PC 2002 was better, and, more importantly, the hardware got smaller, faster, and better.
Palm OS now looks hopelessly dated. It's still more user-friendly than Windows Mobile, but it is now nothing but hacks on top of hacks. I carry a Treo 650 because it's an excellent device with some excellent software (Chatter Email in particular), but it crashes frequently (at least once per day) and doesn't multitask worth a crap. If there were a decent IMAP client for Windows Mobile, I wouldn't use Palm OS at all.
The moral of the story: don't assume that the device which controls 80% of the market will continue to do so in the long run. The iPod is an excellent device with excellent software - just like the Palm Vx. But it's foolish to tell your customers what they do or do not want.
... and the settlers get the land.
It's interesting to me that Microsoft is now introducing what is really a novel "feature" in the mp3/video playback market, and Apple is sitting back, and watching how it plays out. I suspect that the Zune will have middling success, if any, and the wireless feature will essentially be ignored, until another company (or MS) tries it again, and gets it right.
What's interesting is that, when I first heard that quote, it was meant to be applied to Apple. How Apple came out with the first consumer-level graphical GUI (MacOS), the first PDA (Newton) with consumer-level handwriting recognition. These innovations were imperfect, and faced several early problems. However, they provided enough insight into the market that subsequent competitors (MS Windows, Palm) could come in and take over a huge percentage of the market.
Has Apple now stepped back, to allow other companies test the waters? Even the iPod was really not revolutionary (though iTMS was novel) in any way but its physical design.
Let's see, creative labs tried it, Samsung tried it. Sony tried it. Every company has now made a MP3/digital media player. Guess what? The ipod is still number one. Hell the PSP screwed it up a lot. Why is Microsoft going beat them especially when they did "SO well" against the PS2? (Though I have to say the PS3 will lose ground just because of the product not the competition)
Simple fact is Jobs has no reason to be afraid, no one else has gotten close, microsoft might get the most marketshare out of the hacks, but I think that seeing their track record they won't.
There's four essential factors to market. Stylishness (if this wasn't a factor the Ipod wouldn't be the ipod), size of media is comparable, price for size is important but obviously not greatly (Ipod is still pretty hefty even with all the competitors) and finally ease of use. And seeing Microsoft's other products I'm guessing that's not going to be a huge win for them.
Jobs should worry a little bit, but not about Microsoft, and probably not about "Ipod killers" which have been coming for 2 years and apparently not a single one works. Worry 5 years from now when we get the zune 360.
I think it's when you mug someone with an iPod.
Of course, newfangled podjacking might have some vague sexual reference about insering your jack in someone else's pod.
Kids these days say the darndest things.
...because "hacker" sounds way sexier than "code drone."
"Jobs does have his own bits of doublespeak. When he says that customers aren't asking for compatibility he's either defining his terms VERY carefully or he's in denial."
.."
Like, where's this big outcry. How many times am I going to change player. If it works good enough people wil stick with the ipod. The music companies can sell songs to other manufacturers as well. So where's the restriction.
"On the other hand he can't say
You making up fake quotes to only knock them down doesn't really count.
was Re:Doublespeak he can't avoid... score 5 fud
davecb5620@gmail.com
This is a silly summary. If you're out to get girls, ditch the Zune AND the iPod, and get them back to your pad to show off your phonograph record player with collection of LPs. No, seriously, try it. Most gals of dating age haven't seen a phograph record in their lives, but they've heard oldies on the radio...
The tables could turn as to who is grading but the 'teacher' in this case is whoever the target market is. In this case, it is anyone who wants to buy a music player. Any design team that has some intuition on what the consumer is going to enjoy has the advantage. Any design team that has some intuition on what their management is going to think the consumer will buy is going to collect their paycheck for as long as the company has money.
Microsoft does a lot of business with the government and big businesses; their target market is usually people who make purchasing decisions. Those are not going to be the most risk-taking (or hard working) people on the planet. They will pick Microsoft to get their 'C', collect their paycheck, and be happy about it.
On a side note, I have heard stories of students just putting printer garbage or blank paper in their reports. The teacher supposedly graded by the pound.
I think he's saying that us guys will finally get a taste of our own medicine: we'll finally learn how crappy it is when the girl gets up and leaves before WE'RE done.
Insert obligitory, "I put my earbud in your mom's ear!" joke here.
Multiplayer Gaming (defined): Sitting around, discussing single-player games with my friends, at the bar.
So, basically he's saying that the MP3 player market will be divided between those who:
Make money
and
Have sex
Emacs: for people who just never know when to
Bluetooth enabled PDA (like the Tapwave Zodiac) :
in most mediaplayer applications :
For the sender :
1. "File" Menu -> "Send"
2. Send as -> "Bluetooth"
3. (List of currently listening devices appears) -> "clic on target"
For the reciever :
0. Turn on bluetooth listening if users is among the 1% of people who have heard of blue jacking turn it off when not used
(which basically is, most of the time, pushing the hardware button that blinks with a blue LED).
1. "Do ou want to recieve song.mp3" -> "Yes".
2. There's no step 2. ( (c) by Apple )
No synchronising, exchanging autorisations, DRM that limits usage or whatever.
We're doing it all the time with friends. (exchanging small tunes with PDAs, phones, etc.)
Bluetooth is great for just copying files (like OGGs/MP3s).
That's how it should be. The problem is, if Apple or Microsoft make it that way, the RIAA will unleash its horde of attorney and sue without limit, for making "an audio player that facilitates copyright infringing".
Whereas PDA are mainly advertiset for organising one's personnal data, Phones are mainly sold for making phonecalls and Zodiac was mainly a gaming console/PDA hybrid. Playing music wasn't their main selling point and they weren't actively touted for their ability to copy files. It was mainly an interesting side-effect of their embed bluetooth.
Also it's in Apple's and Microsoft's own interest (or at least their thinking it) to create a fractured market were everyone can only send tunes to identical peers. One must buy an iPod to be able to recieve tunes for the rest of the iPod owners, and Zunes are only allowed to send tunes to other Zunes. Both of them hope that this will convince potential owners to buy the same gadget as the others (just like IM operators refuse to share networks hoping to attract more new customers to their own network). Whereas, for Phone and PDA there was never an intention to build an exclusive community, it's once again just an interesting side effect of the built-in bluetooth function (Phone already have a market for pay-per-SMS ring-tones)
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
People work around iTunes DRM automatically. They don't even realize it exists.
I've seen it happen more than once. Two weeks ago, I visited a friend of mine who had recently bought a Mac. She had all her music in iTunes, most of it from non-legal download sites. She couldn't find a particular song, so I showed her the iTunes music store. She found the song and bought two versions of it.
She then proceeded to tell her sister that she had found the song they were looking for. Her sister told her to get her a copy. What did my friend do? Burn it to an audio CD and give it to her sister.
Now, they all are on the same wireless network. They have a minitower, two laptops and the MacBook. They could theoretically share music through their network. They don't. I doubt they even know the option exists. If they share files, they send them through MSN, but they only do that for smaller files. Burning a CD is quite simply the natural and easy way to share music.
Bottom line?
From my experience with "normal" computer users, most people don't even realize that these files are DRM'd. The iTunes DRM lets them pretty much do whatever they usually do without interfering.
Maybe an intersting application of the bluetooth-with-RFID-session-initiation (aka "touch devices together to initiate". Already discussed on slashdot somewhere in the past, but I'm too lazy to check).
RIAA's lawyer are sure likely to love it.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
If you want to rant against DRM, at least try to do it with arguments that are based on facts. This is not true. You can burn a given track as many times as you want. You can burn a specific playlist only 7 times (I think), but any change you make to the playlist resets the counter.
That means that it's not simple (but also not impossible) to burn dozens of copies of the same, identical CD containing DRM'd files, but you can burn an infinite amount of CDs containing a specific song.
Uhm... What are you implying? That you can't backup DRM'd files? Or that Apple won't let you re-download files you've lost in a disk crash? Because both of these would be wrong.
Instead of sending the whole song, just build streaming capability into the unit. If done properly, you could conceivably have an entire room of Zunes listening to your stream. Then just add the ability for the listener to download the (albeit crippled) song if they like it... I can see running out of radio spectrum pretty quick though :)
I understand Mark Andressen was unfazed by Internet Explorer.
Insert witty sig here.
A stack of audio CDRs is not a sensible backup: they take up too much space, you lose your metadata, you lose some quality (not a massive deal, but galling nonetheless), and re-ripping any significant volume of music is a huge chore -- especially if your backups don't match anything in CDDB.
Mix, Burn, and Rip in one session. Your music keeps almost all the metadata and file name. The only difference you can see is the file name ends in "m4a" instead of "m4p" and you needed to manually copy over the cover art... and that's no longer even an issue. The difference you can hear... well, if you can hear it you probably should have bought a CD in the first place, since you're already losing quality going from CD to AAC.
As long as iPods are better than their competitors, you can be complacent about this state of affairs.
The only way that iPods are consistently better than their competitors is that the accessories you buy for your iPod will work with your next iPod. The only accessories for your random MP3 player that you can keep when it breaks and you buy a new one... even from the same vendor in most cases... are things with mini stereo jacks as the only way they hook up.
That's a MUCH bigger and MUCH harder problem to solve than ripping the fraction of your music that you bought from iTMS. It's the iPod accessory ecosystem that really locks you in.
Here
E.J Thribb
"She's furniture with a pulse"
ok, no stupid jokes about zunbies... but lets make some research.f fect The zune already produces microwaves, they'd just have to add a little bit more power, and its done! So, how about sharing the song with the girl across the room? aim the antenna at her ear, and its donne. No players needed. And that will easily explain their DRM system. You wont be able to hear many more than three times the same (or any) song. No granny is gonna hear gangsta rap with the brain cooked. No earwax sharing involved. No epidemic spread caused by the lack of telefone (and earbuds) cleaners.
First, who needs an earbud? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microwave_auditory_e
And that's what i would call a microsoft product.
No, that's what you imagine would be cool to do.
What it will probably do is still inside the mind of some techie inside Apple.
are IPOD users.
Everyone else seems fine and dandy. The only people who ever complain about getting music from one place to another: IPOD users. Ive owned MP3 players for years and have NEVER had a problem. Then again I stay MILES away from ITUNES and IPODs.
My MP3 player right now is my cel phone two things that belong in your ears. Phone cameras are pointless phone MP3 players..n.ow this is the future.
One may still share the ear bud with the Zune, so what is Jobs' point? Use the the wireless for same-sex sharing, and if you're creepy and egomaniacal, stick the bud in some woman's ear?
You sort of did though. If your mother had died in child birth, or you were such an insane pain in the ass to deal with, your parents may not have had your younger siblings. I don't think Zima paved the way for Smirnoff Ice though, St. Ides predated Zima and was a malt beverage as well. And it was sorta fruity tasting and came in all sorts of weird flavors that'd make you hurl if you drank too many.
Oh wow, that's so obvious now that you mention it! I think you're going to be spot on with this prediction. With the limitations that Microsoft's putting on it, it only makes sense to send one-time transmissions, not something like a song that people would want to keep. And that service about being able to then buy the song is of course going to warp to being a service where you can get coupons, magazine subscriptions, etc. Thanks Slurms, you gave me a new way of thinking about this!
This comment is clearly not 'insightful'. I run Windows XP, and I DO object to multiple services running at all times in relation to a piece of software I use rarely, if ever. My system, like any respectable Windows user, is tight as a drum in terms of what services I have running - I have no services or applications running that I don't specifically choose to run or need as part of the underlying OS functionality. Why, then, should I accept Apple's bloatware?
Face it, iTunes is a bad citizen when it comes to the Windows platform:
- complete and utter refusal to integrate with the Windows UI
- far slower to load than comparable media players including Winamp, WMP or various open source players
- requires Quicktime (which suffers from the above problems too) to be installed as a separate piece of executable software rather than installing a codec like every other piece of media related software known to mankind
- aforementioned Quicktime installation hijacks your web browser and sets itself as the default plugin for various types of media whether you like it or not, and removing it from your browser without uninstalling it entirely is a nightmare
- and, as the GP mentioned, iTunes runs multiple unneccessary services with no option to turn them off within iTunes, including the iPod service whether you have an iPod or not
Personally I have also found iTunes to be more likely to crash and less likely to work properly with my iPod than Winamp running the excellent ml_ipod plugin.
I *really* hate it that Apple/open source users can never accept a perfectly legitimate complaint from a Windows user about an Apple or open source piece of software without getting on their high horse about how it's all somehow Microsoft's fault or that we shouldn't complain because 'Windoze suxxors anyways'. The vast majority of mainstream publishers of software for Windows would not take the above liberties - why should Apple be an exception?
Read Pynchon.
Apple's bug reporter can be found at https://bugreport.apple.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/Rad arWeb.woa . I've found them to be extremely good about follow up on bug reports -- almost scarily so, since they called my house once when they couldn't get a reply from me by email on a bug I'd reported. The feature that lets you set the width of icon grids in 10.5 is *absolutely* a result of me reporting the lack of ability to do so (it was a popular OS 8.5/9 feature but they missed it in all versions of OS X up til now), which makes me think that they actually listen to their customers.
So really, why not make a bug report on this and see what they do? Certainly an option to "turn of background processes" could be added. Might take a version of iTunes to get done, but it's possible.
You've got a friend in Japan: http://www.jlist.com
Said it before, will say it again: Both formats will be trounced immediately and handily by any start up that offers identical performance/form factor and no DRM.
The ZUNE is dead already, it's DRM to the max, nobody wants to touch it. I personally won't use iTunes for the same reason. Someone get me a wimax ipod, or better yet build it into my cell phone, and leave out the DRM, and I'm just one of MILLIONS of customers.
How are the real conservatives not all over this issue? Why am I the loud liberal canary on what is obviously a personal freedom / consumer rights / free market issue?
Just because the Neocons can't handle their way out of a wet paper bag doesn't mean real conservatives shouldn't still be throwing this stuff in everybody's face every five seconds. I wish they would, so I can get back to my environmentalism and anti-corporatism, where I feel more at home.
rhY
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
-- Steve Jobs.
A public bench. 5:45 p.m. William Shatner's glorious rendition of Rocket Man playing. This is it. The big moment. Moving closer, earbud in fingers, when suddenly...
Girl: Huh--? Wait! Stop! My god, what are you doing?!
Slashdotter: Er...interfacing with your aural cavity via this spheroid sound transmitter, obviously. Hold still and allow me to just mount this syncopated share within your waxy canalspace and--
Girl: "Canalspace"?! Help, police!
If you have a significant amount of music purchased from iTMS, then to listen to it on a portable device you will either have to buy Apple devices for the rest of your life, or one day you will have to go through an inconvenient and potentially illegal protection stripping exercise.
Or you can follow Apple's recommended DRM-stripping technique on the music as you buy it, building up a library of hard backups of your music as you go along.
Mix, Burn, Rip
Why in the hell would you ever buy music through the iTunes store if you weren't going to at least keep it in iTunes?
Same reason I'll buy it from eMusic.com. Because I can buy the one track I like off a CD that's otherwise, well, bleh. So I can make my own "Best Of" compilation without spending hundreds of dollars on the "Rest Of" slush. So I can buy music from artists I'd otherwise never try because, well, I can afford to drop a buck each on a dozen musicians where I'd balk at dropping a C-note or two at the record store.
A lot of my iTMS store purchases have been followed by Amazon CD purchases.
"You know damned well that when (not if) iPod comes out with wireless, his tune on that will change in a hurry. Kind of like Intel was slow until Apple was using it."
I've been making a prediction for a long time concerning iPods and wireless - it's 50% prediction, and 50% personal desire. I haven't bought an iPod because I've been waiting for my prediction to come true. The thing about wireless in a music player is not whether or not the player has it, but how it can be utilised.
Inter-personal networking with music players seems very over-hyped and is something which I doubt even an enthusiast would use very often. The idea requires being immobile in one place long enough to go through the motions, and for someone to have a compatible player, and for them to be willing to accept your connection - many people already have negative experiences with bluetooth devices in this regard. This is not a great way to start.
Also, the success of this feature relies on receivers enjoying the music that has been shared with them, as it is a push model rather than pull. If people keep getting music they don't like from others, then the feature fails, and so Microsoft fails. Microsoft must rely on the public's interaction for this feature to be a success - too risky!
Then there's the apathy factor. Don't forget that iTunes had sharing years ago and still has it today. How many people care? How many people bother sharing their libraries looking for others? I've used it over a home network, and out of curiosity I sometimes leave it on over the internet. I have never seen a shared library come off the internet, and this is a pull model - if people used it, they could explore what others offer and listen to what they like, and still this does not seem to happen. Jobs probably has some numbers telling him how much people really care or not about sharing music with others.
I think a good way to look at the differences in approach between Apple's entertainment efforts and Microsoft's, is "personal behaviour" vs. "people's behaviour". Just about everything in the Apple home entertainment lineup is geared towards personal fulfillment. Every crowd is a bunch of individuals. The Zune approach seems like Microsoft looked a little too long at MySpace and how people behave in a group, and tried to adapt that group behaviour to a personal music player. Many personal networking websites have come and gone; does Microsoft expect personal networking music players to really be a long-term thing?
iPods need wireless to tie in with Airport Express. That would be very useful and the amount of hardware going into each unit would be put to good use on a regular basis, and it would result in personal gratification, not others imposing themselves upon you.
You come home, take the iPod out of your pocket, select your network and the speaker location you want, and music starts coming out of the stereo. As you move around your home, you switch speaker locations on the iPod and the music follows you. There is no need to go back and forth to the computer to switch locations (as is the case now) and there is no need for a remote because the iPod is the remote, streaming the music over the network - just tote the player around or plop it on the coffee table.
All the pieces are in place except the wireless iPod.
RTFM; please, I beg you.
PopCap is lovin this free publicity though...
...is not that I'm a Mac fan boy, but that you doesn't understand how Windows services actually work. I can help you with that; I'm actually a Windows programmer, and writing Windows services is a big part of my job.
.NET. (QuickTime also didn't take over any of my mappings, though every minor update to Windows Media Player does.)
Services can register themselves, and even set themselves to automatically start, but if you turn off the service... it's off. It doesn't run, and so doesn't do any more damage than an application process that's not running (and hasn't hooked itself in to the registry in any significant way). Services that aren't running don't consume any resources, beyond its registry entries so Windows knows its installed/registered and whatever disk space the files take.
But even when iPodService is running, it is well behaved. It seems to take only about 3MB of memory and consumes no CPU resources.
The bottom line is that if you can't figure out how to turn off a service I don't understand why you're complaining about them to begin with.
My big complaint about iTunes is actually Apple Software Update. I don't understand how Apple expects to have a reputation for well-designed software when they ship they rely on an external program for updates (that doesn't actually seem to deliver updates). QuickTime is a different case; a lot of developers use it. Objecting to it is a bit like objecting to Microsoft's Common Controls or